Beneath the Wraps

                 During the course of our blogs, my brother and I have both mentioned how our growing up years may have seemed idealistic – how our share of problems pale in comparison to countless others.  I don’t relate to dysfunctional families and am highly grateful for that.  As I looked around the room during Relief Society yesterday I noticed each one of the sisters (or most of them) had been a part of a dysfunctional family either in childhood or parenthood – sometimes both I felt a sense of sadness.  I don’t/didn’t wish to appear like I was boasting with my “unexpected answer to prayer” example compared to great struggles and hardships of others.          I am GRATEFUL to be an oddball.   The closest I have come to experiencing the dysfunctional thing has been on the outside seeing a glimpse of Biff’s challenges and his in-laws.   I hadn’t thought of them as dysfunctional but there ...

                I don't know how old the "Feature Films for Families" is.   The earliest date I can find for my research is 1991.   But it seems like my mom purchased films through the company long before then.   Perhaps I am mixed up with my memory thinking that Kayla and Corey were still in elementary school, but maybe it was 1991 and the children were Ellen and Kimball.                                 I remember "Banjo, the Woodpile Cat" which I believed was an original of the FFFF company as the story takes place in Payson, Utah before Banjo runs away to Salt Lake City.   According to Wikipedia ( here ), the release date was December 21, 1979.   It makes more sense that FFFF got its start in the 70s rather than in the 90'...

            I have noticed with each passing year, Jenna has had friends or acquaintances join Facebook – which has an age restriction – and I know for a fact that they are all younger than required age.               There have been some who've asked for her email address and we have given out mine, as Jenna does not have one.   She did have one through the school, but has forgotten it.   But I don’t imagine she could start a facebook account with a school email address anyway.               I could pay 50 cents to start an email account for her – or lie about her age – which evidently is what most of her friends or acquaintances (or their parents) have done.   How important is it for her to have this that we need to lie about it?   Thus she still isn’t on facebook.   ...

I'm grateful to have second hand stores or gift cards or sales in which I can make a purchase for a book bag or back pack.   I ragged on my daughter's lack of responsibility in yesterday's post.  Her backpack had been in the car on Saturday but she doesn't remember seeing it on Sunday.  Someone had been in the car looking for something.  We concluded that the back pack had been stolen by whoever it was.  We made a police report, but I don't expect that anything will come of it.  Wish they would have at least emptied the contents before stealing the backpack though. Every once in a while I will see something quite profound on facebook.  I really like this thought posted by one of my friends: "I was shopping when I saw a purse for over $1,000.00 Really! for a purse! I could buy groceries for 2 months for the price of that purse. Wow, even if I had that kind of money to spare I could never spend that kind of money on something so frivo...

When I was younger I had a crush on Michael Cole  who portrayed the character Pete Cochran on the Mod Squad.  I was probably more in love with the idea of Pete than I was infatuated with Michael. Recently I watched an episode of the old TV Series and felt admiration all over again. Pete Cochran is a gentleman.  He opens doors for women.  He shows compassion.  This particular episode was shot in its final season around Christmas time.  An acquaintance of Pete asked him if he could watch his daughter for an hour.  The acquaintance said there was some business he needed to take care of but that he’d be right back.  Pete willingly took his daughter and kept on eye on her for several hours actually. Pete, estranged from his own parents, encouraged the little girl to pray.  She said that she didn’t believe in God and Pete’s answer introduced her to the world of hope.  I admired him for his carefully selected words.  And I...

         I really did not know my Grandpa James.   I was told that he was the black sheep in his family.   His biological mother died only a week after he was born.   He grew up having made quite a few errors.   He enjoyed smoking, drinking and older woman.   I’m not certain how he and grandma met as he was from Ogden and she was from Panguitch.   I think he may have had family living in Panguitch.   I don’t know.           I would think he hadn’t joined the navy until after he married my grandma as they lived in Utah for almost four years.   My mom was two when the navy took them from Utah to San Francisco          My maternal grandparent’s divorced after my mom had turned thirteen.   But I believe they were still married when my grandfather planted an early seed to discourage my mom from wanting to smoke or drink. Perhaps it wa...

Kayla and I were looking through the TV grid and she asked me if I ever watched a program “Switched at Birth” – as I had missed out on the pilot, I didn’t fully understand what was going on nor understood how all of the characters involved were connected. It wasn’t until just recently that I was able to back up to the beginning and felt sucked into certain characters even though I was unbelievably shaking my head more with each episode as the parents lied to their kids, and the kids lie to the parents, and the parents just don’t understand why their children would lie. They have lied to spare hurt feelings – they say they are protecting the victim – whom becomes more of a victim because they had not been confronted with the truth to begin with.  Only one character who has lied has actually felt guilty about it and does not seem to have a place within her to deceit – and yet as she finds herself around it day after day at home, at school, at work . . . the lyin...